


Claws of a Hellhound

by CastielTheAngel



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Cas is still in Purgatory, Dean Has Nightmares, Dean Has Self-Worth Issues, Hellhounds, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Incomplete, M/M, Post-Purgatory, Sad Dean Winchester, Sad Sam Winchester, discontinued
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-13
Updated: 2016-06-13
Packaged: 2018-07-14 19:32:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7187177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CastielTheAngel/pseuds/CastielTheAngel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's running. He's running as fast as his legs will carry him across the dry, aged, leaf-covered ground. It's not enough. They're chasing him, they're catching up. Their claws are extended and he can feel their hot and heavy breathing on his calves. Still, he continues to sprint. Then he trips.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Claws of a Hellhound

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo... I have no idea how this is gonna turn out... I felt the need to write an emotionally Hurt!Dean-centered nightmare fic and it turned into a storyline sort of and things just kind of happened hhhhhhh
> 
> Expect more chapters maybe???
> 
> [ originally posted to Wattpad - https://www.wattpad.com/story/74626407-claws-of-a-hellhound-⇝-destiel ]
> 
> UPDATE: Sorry, I don't think I'll be continuing this ... •_•'

* * *

 

 _claws of a hellhound //_  
chapter one

●▬▬▬▬▬๑۩۩๑▬▬▬▬▬●

 _ **HE'S RUNNING. HE'S RUNNING AS** fast as his legs will carry him across the dry, aged, leaf-covered dirt. It's not enough. They're chasing him, they're catching up. Their claws are extended and he can feel their hot, heavy breaths on his aching calves. Still he continues to sprint. Then he trips. It's all over. The angry snarls of half starved devil-dogs are closer to his ears than comfortable and the painful sensation of large jagged claws against skin would be enough to cause him to cry out- if he hadn't been so exhausted from his 'luxurious jog in the park'. So he just lays there and takes it. Takes each rake of sharp protruding talons down his poor beaten body without a single noise. He knows it's over. To be truthful, it had never really **begun**. A single word passes his lips- not a word, a name. It rolls from his mouth and it's like a single droplet of water in a drought, cold and refreshing against his burning tongue._  
_" **Castiel** ,"_  
_and then he's done_.

Dean awakens with a start. He can feel his own heart racing a mile a minute and he swears that if it were possible, the vital organ would pump it's way right through his sweating chest.

_That's been one of the worst ones yet._

He hasn't been holding up so well since he escaped Purgatory. Each gloriously rare chance he got to rest was always interrupted by a horribly frightening nightmare. Not much scared the young hunter, but if anything these terrors in the night were amongst his deepest of fears.  
They were hardly real, of course, but he'd always wake up shaking- or even screaming on darker nights-, his chance to catch a beloved and well desired _second_ of shuteye torn right from underneath his feather-stuffed pillow.

Dean can hear his little brother's soft snoring on the other side of the room and he takes comfort in the fact that Sam is okay. He holds onto that one little strip of hope, wrapping himself in it like a blanket on the chilliest of winter nights.  
_Sammy is there for him; always has been, always will be._

The thought calms Dean's sprinting pulse to a light jog and he takes a moment to catch his breath. He barely notices that Sam's snuffling has stopped until his brother is sitting on the edge of his bed stroking through his hair like their mother used to do whenever Dean had a bad dream all those years ago.

Sam remains completely silent. Dean doesn't need to look up to know that his brother is watching him with his usual intense, concerned, and even more so _gentle_ hazel eyes. He eventually quits messing with Dean's hair, but his giant warm hand is ever presently splayed out on Dean's light grey teeshirt-clad back.

The unspoken question of ' _do you want to talk about it?_ ' hangs in the cold motel room air and Dean knows that his curious little brother would absolutely _kill_ to ask it aloud, but he's grateful that, for once, Sammy keeps his trap shut.

●▬▬▬๑۩๑▬▬▬●

It had been one in the morning when Dean had been shaken to consciousness, so he isn't surprised that he'd fallen back asleep after a little bit. What does ever so slightly baffle him is the weight of his oversized _moose-brother_ on top of him. Sam isn't a heavy guy- in fact he's actually surprisingly light for his dramatic height and muscular build- but he feels like an actual _elephant_ when his entire body is sprawled across you like a human quilt.

As quietly as he can, Dean grunts his way out from underneath Sammy and gets out of bed. Sam looks knackered even while asleep, so Dean hikes the toothpaste-blue sheets of his half-stolen bed up to his brother's lean shoulders before relocating himself on the near unbearably uncomfortable cushions of the couch.

It was times like this- when Sam would be sleeping or out of the room for a few hours maybe- that the young hunter took the time to sit. It's what he's doing right now. Just sitting, pondering.  
Dean can't shake the terrible dream he'd had about the hellhounds. It replays in his mind over and over and _over_ , reminding him of his dreadful last few hours in Purgatory... Though it has nothing to do with the demonic pets of their ' _friend_ ' Crowley.

He'd thought that first waking up in the terrible place was the worse part. He'd thought that fighting off hundreds of souls and vampires and even _leviathans_ with Benny- all the while looking for a certain angel in a trench coat- had been the worst part.

It wasn't.

The worst part happened when they got to the portal to escape Purgatory. Was when Dean- he had tried so, so hard to pull Castiel through... But he'd failed.

In his own eyes, he'd failed the angelic being. _His very best friend._

The memory of _Castiel shouting Dean's name while Dean gripped the angel's arm as tight as he could_ shadows the hunter's mind. He can still feel _Cas's hand slipping past his fingertips; can still feel the moment that they let go, and the wave of_ /some inexplicable emotion that Dean doesn't have a name for/ _that pumped through his veins like adrenaline the moment their skin had separated._

Once again, Dean hardly notices that Sam is awake and next to him.

"Did you sleep well? I mean, other than... _You know_." Sam asks. A small, apologetic frown spreads across his sharp and sleep-deprived features. Dean merely shrugs, hardly offering his brother an answer.

"Come on. Talk to me man, I know you better than you know yourself. You you suck at hiding things from me, Dean." Sam persists. His built in _Dean-instincts_ could sense that something was off when he first woke up, and now that Dean's barely said a word- unusual for his normally ' _chatty-Kathy_ ' personality-, Sam knows something's wrong.

"Are you thinking about Cas again?" Sam asks. His voice has gone soft and it has a cautious edge to it that Dean isn't quite sure he likes. Nonetheless, he decides to quit giving his little brother a hard time for once and actually communicate with him as a proper adult normally would.

Then again, they're the Winchesters. They don't do _normal_. So Dean changes his mind about communication and just nods instead. He knows exactly what Sam is going to say.

"It wasn't your fault."

 _Bingo_.

But the thing is, it _is_ his fault. Dean knows he could have tried harder. He knows that his hardest wasn't his best.

The truth- the _**actual** truth_ \- is.. Castiel let Dean go. Dean hadn't given up, he'd used every ounce of his strength to try and pull Cas through their window of opportunity.

Dean refuses to believe that though. He refuses to believe that it isn't his own fault that Castiel is still stuck in Purgatory.

He does know one thing, however.

Whether he has to learn _Enochian_ to perform some sort of summoning spell to teleport Castiel to them or jump right back into Purgatory and drag him out, he's going to get the angel back.

No doubt about that.


End file.
